Car Academy: Creativity

My working definition of creativity is to produce a combination of things or actions that have not been learned from experience (the jargon for this is “divergent thinking“). Like most other things in life, it relies on practice more than talent. So how do you practice this while your kids are in the back of your car and you are driving?

I like to play a game that I call “1000 ways to skin the cat” which comes in two basic flavors: find ways how something could be done or suggest what to do with something. I’ll give an example for each.

For the first variant, I would start picking a task. I typically try to find something that is fun to think about, but it should not require too many steps. For example, how can we get mom wet on a hot summer day. Then I start by making a suggestion, for example I would say I’ll take a glass of water and pour it over her. Then the kids take a turn, then myself again, etc. until we run out of ideas, or this question gets boring and we start with the next one. Note that sometimes children get stuck in one mode of thinking. For example, one would say we can put a bucket over the door and she will get wet when she opens the door. The next suggestion replaces the bucket with a different container, and soon the entire variation is only about containers. I typically let this go on for a while (after all, thinking in categories is good for structure) but when they start to persevere, I add limitations (“Now ideas with a door do not count any more”). The person with the last idea gets to pick the next topic.

The second variant is very similar, but instead of a problem I offer a tool and request ideas what to do with it. For example, “What can we do with a rubber band and a mirror?” Answers range from attaching the mirror to the rubber band to see what the neighbors downstairs are doing to bundling the sun’s light on the rubber band and melting it. You get the idea.

For both versions, be generous in what you count as a contribution. Remember, this is a creativity exercise, not a knowledge or structure exercise. Have fun!